The Curfew Was the Worst Thing to Happen to South Asian Daughters

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The most insulting thing about a curfew was that it was always presented as love and protection. My parents never said, “We do not trust you.” They said, “We worry about you.” They never admitted, “The men in this family have more freedom because they are boys.” Instead, they said, “The world is different for girls.” And they certainly never said, “Your movements must be controlled to protect the family’s reputation.” No, no, they simply said, “Be home before it gets dark.”

How magical and adventurous my younger years would have been if the sun had respected my social life. Unfortunately, winter in Canada meant darkness arrived at four-thirty in the afternoon, around the same time school ended. Technically, I had broken curfew before I had even left the building.

For many South Asian daughters, the curfew was our first lesson in how gender, power, and society worked. We learned that freedom was not distributed according to maturity, intelligence, or good behavior, rather it was distributed according to whether the family believed you could become pregnant. A son could disappear for eight hours with a vague promise to “be around,” but a daughter had to submit the address, phone number, guest list, transportation plan and recent criminal history of everyone attending. Even then, the answer was probably no.